David Remnick has a pretty-damn-good piece in the New Yorker on Benny Morris's new book, concluding, "Next month, the Israelis mark the sixtieth anniversary of their independence, the Palestinians the sixtieth anniversary of al-nakba, the catastrophe." So Nakba recognition has come to the New Yorker. Last week the nakba was mentioned in the Times in a piece about Bush's visit to the region.
Remnick's writing has sweep and gravity, and his reasoned point of view shows where "the arrow" is pointing, as they say in college basketball: it's pointing to more and more Nakba recognition, more and more of the Palestinian narrative coming into American life. Apres Obama, le deluge. But Remnick's piece is also way too favorable to Morris. Yes Morris is an important historian, a leader; but it is not the case, as Remnick says, that he flatters no one's prejudices, especially his own. Here I am judging from earlier work by Morris; and I can't imagine his new book is altogether different in tone. In his choleric attack on Walt and Mearsheimer in the New Republic, Morris expressed anger about the delegitimization of the Jewish state in western intellectual circles. That isn't a historical impulse; it's an ideological impulse.
And then there is his analysis, in his classic, Righteous Victims, about "the Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem." Morris stated that the refugee problem was created by factors on both sides: 1, sociological transformation of the Palestinians from a rural population to an urban population, lacking "social or political cohesion" and enraged by Zionist immigration, 2, The active policy of "transfer," endorsed by Ben-Gurion, which the Yishuv then carried out; expulsion. To equate these factors is absurd, it reveals prejudice. It reminds me of the neocon argument that the Arabs attacked us on 9/11 because young men have no political freedom in their societies, thus placing vap0rs (sociological analysis) on the same footing as dynamite (anti-neocolonial resentment). Transfer, the Zionist policy, was clearly the decisive factor. After all, there didn't have to be a refugee problem; a year later the Zionists could have let all the refugees back. They didn't, defying the U.N. They wanted an ethnically-cleansed state.
One of the lessons of the historiography of the Middle East is that we all have prejudices. As Remnick shows, Zionists have created their own narratives since Leon Uris's time and back. And Arabs have shelves of scholarship on Zionism and the Nakba that are all but unknown to the west. What is the American role? That is the question. American Jewish intellectuals are still engaged by the Zionist narratives we grew up with. "I was a Zionist before I was a Democrat," Howard Berman says, and this is true for countless other liberal Jews who lack Berman's transparency. The gift of post-Obama America, the freedom we have as Americans, the responsibility of Americans, is that we must bring our own inspiring narratives, of the civil rights struggle and minority empowerment, to bear on the situation. Already we are doing so, and look at the effect it is having in intellectual circles. The 1967 narrative--the peace process, with all its failures and lies on both sides--is beginning to yield to the 1948 narrative, the original problem. It's a long bumpy road, but as the New Yorker shows, Americans are traveling it...
In my estimation, the non-Zionist narrative
of the Middle East has no chance of gaining
parity with the Zionist one among mainstream
journalists or among policy-makers. I predict that Sniegoski's The Transparent
Cabal will never be reviewed in the NY Times
and that the month of May be full of completely one-sided coverage on television
and in the major print media of the birth
of Israel.
"The 1967 narrative–the peace process, with all its failures and lies on both sides–is beginning to yield to the 1948 narrative, the original problem. It's a long bumpy road, but as the New Yorker shows, Americans are now traveling it…"
Most people don't read the New Yorker. A long road, for sure.
Maybe it's time for Mel Gibson to make a movie about the Nakba? Script slices:
"People are the same no matter what they're called," says Eva Marie Saint reborn.
"Don't believe it," replies Paul Newman reborn, "People have the right to be different."
"All my life I've heard I'm supposed to not exist because I'm a dumb, dirty Raghead," the American Palestinian professor says, breaking down in his last class, where he talked about the Nakba to his few Gentile students. "Let me tell you, kids. Every time HAMAS sends a few cheap rockets into Israel or some Arab kid throws a stone at an Israeli tank or knocks the hell out of some settlers he's winning respect for me. He's making a liar out of everyone who tells me Arabs don't count in the grand scheme of things The guys over there are fighting my battle for respect … understand that?"
___________
The real-life Israeli captain, Yeheil Aranowicz, of the blockade-running ship, the Exodus, upon which that novel is based, was subsequently quoted as saying that "the type [of characters in the novel] never existed in Israel. The novel is neither history or literature." Informed of Captain Aranowicz's authoritative judgements, Uris responded, "Captain who? And that's all I have to say. I'm not going to pick on a light weight. Just look at my sales figures."
hatever the case, said Edward Tivnan, "the Israel of most Americans, including Jews, is still the Exodus version."
"In books, movies, and TV shows in the 1950s and 1960s," said Stephen Green, "the Jewish state was depicted as having defeated the Arabs against overwhelming odds, contrary to virtually every professional strength estimate of the opposing forces that were made at the time of the war itself."
What lurks in the heart of man, Goebbels knew.
Uris, a high school drop-out who flunked three English classes, was boldly self-referential in a later novel, Mitla Pass (1988). Therein, an Israeli official says to the novel's main character, a Jewish author, that "this would be the first American novel about Israel. It could be valuable in gaining favorable world opinion." [URIS, L., Mitla, p. 304] In real life, even David Ben Gurion, one of Israel's most revered prime ministers, said that "as a piece of propaganda [Exodus] is still the greatest thing ever written about Israel."
"Uris had the blessings of Hollywood before he wrote the book," said Stephen Whitfield.
Anyone who feels the painful civil rights movement in the USA
is a plus, overall, and that thinks the Nuremberg indictments were not merely (As Napoleon and Goering said while still in power) "history is just a tale written by the victors" needs to absorb the Nakba.
Those who downplay it, including the USA government & AIPAC, merely show the content of their character.
I like Morris' analysis.
"After all, there didn't have to be a refugee problem; a year later the Zionists could have let all the refugees back. They didn't, defying the U.N. They wanted an ethnically-cleansed state."
I think that is an innaccurate description of a causal relationship.
The laws ARE important to address, as they were what made the prohibition from return and failure of rule of law in Israel in a color-blind manner, permanent.
My sense is that the reason that the various laws constructing prohibition from physical return, prohibiting absentee legal protection of property rights, and compelling transfer of title to property to the state of Israel, was fear.
Similar fears motivated the construction of the wall.
That was, that they couldn't tell which of the Palestinians returning would accept being neighbors with Jews in a Jewish jurisdiction, a Jewish state, from those that would murder them in their sleep.
Fear is not a good basis of public policy, but martial conditions have existed in the region since 1948.
And similar fears and ethnically based prohibitions exist in Palestinian law, and in some form in every Arab state that I'm aware of.
I don't like either/or questions that remind me of adolescent arguments about "who is the greatest guitarist?"
Thats NOT what reality is.
Its not single truth, single perspective or single loyalty.
Of course, Richard.
It's comforting to think there was never a transfer policy.
As you know, but don't reflect on, Norman Finkelstein and Nur Masalha have documented the reverse.
Exodus the book, and Exodus, the movie. Gentile pabulum. Goebbels laughs in his grave.
Did your son join the IDF yet? The US Army?
Bet you can't wait for the US AF & Navy to attack Iran.
However, I do agree that fear was the motivation for all Israel's
acts.
Fear is always the elite's motivational tool. Look at Bush's spiel, look at Hillary's. Look at Hitler's and Mussolini's, Stalin's. Scare the peasants.
It always works.
Watch next November.
Charles,
With your words, is the effect to increase fear in the world, or to decrease it?
Hitler never had a clear extermination policy until 1942, when he began losing the war and had to actually defend Germany against pure enemies within. Early self-declared state Israel also made things up as they went along.
Our leaders, past and present, do not think long term in any practical manner.
We just all have to live with the results.
And, what do you think is the honorable response to invocations of fear?
1. To respond in anger
2. To cower
3. To have intellectual backbone based on conscientious inquiry and rigorous self-examination
"Charles, With your words, is the effect to increase fear in the world, or to decrease it?"–Richard Witty
Richard, I want every single American soldier coming back to the USA to have a half-hour of prime TV, beginning with TEEVEE
show of each casket, draped with the American flag.
I want to see on prime time TEEVEE a full debate of why we went into Iraq, and why Bush will go into Iran before he leaves office.
I want the average Americans to see the cost-benefit analyis of the neocons and both major American political parties.
If America really knew, it would follow Ron Paul.
Keating, you really are an asshole. Hitler didn't start exterminating Jews until the war turned against Germany and then he had to take care of enemies within. That either makes you insane, or a nazi. Which one is it? Or somebody who has never picked up a history book in his entire life.
Sword, why do you always have to call people names?
Germany had a de facto transfer policy until 1942.
Pick up a book.
What is your point Charles?
Why bring up a reference at all?
Phil,
Was your impression that Righteous Victims was somehow an apology for conspiratorial Zionism?
The thesis of the whole work was that the two primary narratives were each partially true, and considered more true depending on what you got to see (and each community most often DIDN'T see the experience of the other).
The Palestinians didn't see the historic and present experience of the Zionists, and the Zionists didn't see the historical and present experience of the Palestinians.
To humanize the situation requires NOT taking sides as to which narrative is more true.
Human beings, not "racist manipulative Zionists". Not …. Palestinians. (I don't want to contribute to stereotypes that I know are not accurate.)
Babi Yar, 1941. 34,000 dead in two days. I guess they didn't get the word about the transfer policy.
It's even easier, Sword. Just google via Wiki: "From 1941 onward, Jews were required to wear a yellow badge in public and most were transferred to ghettos, where they remained isolated from the rest of the population. In January 1942, at the Wannsee Conference and under the supervision of Reinhard Heydrich, who himself was commanded by Heinrich Himmler, a plan for the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" (Endlösung der Judenfrage) in Europe was designed. From then until the end of the war some six million Jews and many others, including homosexuals, Slavs, and political prisoners, were systematically killed under orders from Himmler. In addition, more than ten million people were put into forced labour. This genocide is called the Holocaust in English and the Shoah in Hebrew. Thousands were shipped daily to extermination camps (Vernichtungslager, sometimes called "death factories") and concentration camps (Konzentrationslager, KZ), some of which were originally detention centers but later converted into death camps for the purpose of killing their inmates."
The importance is that you should know our leaders, elected or appointed, don't know what they are doing.
Get that romantic Jew mote out of your eye.
Killing of Jews (and others) started in very large numbers much earlier, maybe not engineered specifically for genocide, yet.
The period of Babi Yar, September 1941, just makes my point, Sword. You moron. There's a difference between on-the-ground-solutions and official policy.
Wake up!
I'm not for Babi Yar or Gaza.
Wake up!
Thanks, Richard. I guess your IQ is quite more than Sword's.
Now, let's look at what's been happening in the Middle East with Åmerican funds. I'm American, that's why I care how my money is spent.
Me too.
Charles,
Do you think the United States should be involved in other conflicts in the world, or is it just Israel that the you think the US should cease supporting?
Do you think that the United States should be militarily "adventurish" in defense of interests, or should it instead limit its scope to constitutionally defined defense of land and people?
And should the United States exert any effort in protecting American citizens when they are abroad?
Say in Israel?
Not sure what you mean by your questions, Ricarad. I am against the USA's contiued support of Arab regimes, especially Saudi Arabia.
I don't think the American interest lies in rubber-stamping the Israel regime or the Arab kingdoms.
Keating, what's the story, did you have some favorite relative in the einzatsgruppen, ( look it up ) who regaled you with stories about their on the ground solutions to the "Jewish Problem" .
At least Morris says what he thinks. He is a typical Israeli ethnic cleanser who regrets that not all Palestinians were murdered, raped, expelled from glorious Israel in 1947-48.
Why don't you read Ron Paul's latest book?
I am a poor America. I have high ideals, but barely pay the rent,
I'm agnostic by real life,
Give me somethig to rely on.
Sword of Gideon has never read Jewish historian Mayer's "Why Did The Heavens Not Darken?"
Gideon has never read Jewish historian
Arno Mayer's "Why Did The Heavens Not Darken?"
Why does Phiilp Weiss not delete
"Hitler never had a clear extermination policy until 1942, when he began losing the war and had to actually defend Germany against pure enemies within."?
The Associated Press writes yesterday:
Yah I know, the naqba is the worst thing that has ever happened to anybody anywhere at anytime.
CONCENTRATION CAMP DOCTOR HEADS LIST OF TOP 10 WANTED NAZIS
BADEN-BADEN, Germany – Karl Lotter, a prisoner who worked in the hospital at Mauthausen concentration camp, had no trouble remembering the first time he watched SS doctor Aribert Heim kill a man.
It was 1941, and an 18-year-old Jew had been sent to the clinic with a foot inflammation. Heim asked him about himself and why he was so fit. The young man said he had been a soccer player and swimmer.
Then, instead of treating the prisoner’s foot, Heim cut him open, castrated him, took apart one kidney and removed the second, Lotter said. The victim’s head was removed and the flesh boiled off so that Heim could keep it on display.
“He needed the head because of its perfect teeth,” Lotter, a non-Jewish political prisoner, recalled in testimony eight years later that was included in an Austrian warrant for Heim’s arrest uncovered by The Associated Press. “Of all the camp doctors in Mauthausen, Dr. Heim was the most horrible.”
The Austrian medic would inject petrol and an array of different poisons straight into the hearts of his so-called patients to see which killed them fastest. He once removed the tattooed flesh of a prisoner and turned it into soft furnishings for his commandant’s flat.
But Heim managed to avoid prosecution, his American-held file in Germany mysteriously omitting his time at Mauthausen [in Austria], and today he is the most-wanted suspected Nazi war criminal on a list of hundreds who the Simon Wiesenthal Center estimates are still free.
Heim would be 93 today and “we have good reason to believe he is still alive,” said Efraim Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s top Nazi hunter. He spoke in a telephone interview from Jerusalem ahead of the center’s plans to release a most-wanted list Wednesday, and to open a media campaign in South America this summer highlighting the $485,000 reward for Heim’s arrest posted by the center along with Germany and Austria…
***
Corrext:
"Hitler never had a clear extermination policy until 1942, when he began losing the war and had to actually defend Germany against pure enemies (he had created more than not) from within."
"To humanize the situation requires NOT taking sides as to which narrative is more true."
A real gem. Wow. I don't have time for parody but that is really one of your best yet, Rich.
Oh, and Captain Wits, I'd be happy to make the argument that this guy here is the greatest guitarist ever–
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ldLO4LwNLHY
–if only zionism would quit demanding that Americans support it. Bigger fish, fry, etc.
"But no longer. At least in terms of his book, Paul is Numero Uno. Paul's Paulunteers have driven his brand-new book — 'The Revolution: A Manifesto' — to No. 1 on the amazon.com bestseller list. They're also packing the reader reviews with five-star evaluations, as they've been packing the comment columns of blogs like this for many months."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/05/ron-paul-politi.html
Is this true Charles?
How then is Ron Paul's efforts that much different than CAMERA's alleged attempt to bias wikipedia.
Lots of stacked rooms, enacted by those with a compelling idea.
IT is a myth that the Nazis killed homosexuals. They locked them up, but didn't kill them. Which is ironic because the original leadership of the Nazi SA brownshirt stormtroopers, led by Roehm, were homosexuals.
"I don't have time for parody"
Pity. The P.A.Z. Jew is the greatest achievement in Mondoweissian folklore. Without him how could we lesser beings understand the complex inner feelings of "Capitain Wits" and the Thumbtackman?
"How then is Ron Paul's efforts that much different than CAMERA's alleged attempt to bias wikipedia."
LOL! "Alleged!"
It's different Witty because the Ron Paul people are locked out of power, have 0 political influence; they are frozen out of our "democracy" because opposition to zionism or the Federal Reserve are political thought crimes, which make one unfit to govern in the United States at the federal level.
CAMERA on the other hand is part of a network whose leadership boasts being able to have 75 senators' signatures on a napkin in 48 hours.
See the difference, Richard?
"…how could we lesser beings understand the complex inner feelings of "Capitain Wits" and the Thumbtackman?"
Simple, really.
First, merely freeze the space-time continuum, and dissolve all facts and arguments in 100 proof ziofolkloric acid.
Next, construct yourself an enormous 100x life-size copy of Alan Dershowitz' _The Case for Israel_.
Make this giant monstrosity your house, and every day live in it. Defend it against any intruders.
Then, and only then, you may try to master the zen of a thousand crushed Palestinian bones.
Poor kid. All of his hopes and dreams dashed by cold reality. Israelis are less bigoted than he.